Ever wondered why Bollywood never produced a Superman or a Batman? Sure, there was Krrish but he never really got the fan following that a superhero deserves.
Here’s a theory. They did. Bollywood has been producing superheroes since the last forty years. You may not have noticed them because they don’t wear a cape or a mask. They are like Clark Kent, wearing your everyday costumes. They can do almost everything that a Superman can do.
It started with Amitabh Bachchan in the seventies. Much has been written about the zeitgeist that gave rise to the Angry Young Man. People could no longer cope with the sugary sweet romancing of Rajesh Khanna on screen while the country was in turmoil – nationalization of banks, Bangladesh war, erosion of fundamental rights finally culminating in the 1975 emergency. Amitabh Bachchan as Vijay was in the right place at the right time. So were the writers, Salim-Javed.
Bachchan did not have the physique of a Superman. It was the intensity in his acting that made people believe that he can beat 50 people in a fight. Diptakirti Chaudhuri in his book Written by Salim-Javed describes reaction of someone in the audience as ‘Arre, baap re baap’ during the famous police station scene in Zanjeer. Never before had the Indian audience seen such a volcano erupt on screen.
Things were never the same after Bachchan. He could do everything – sing, dance, fight. During the seventies, he was a superhero both on and off the screen. Interestingly, a similar role was played by Rajinikanth in Tamil movies and his action sequences are much closer to a superhero than Bachchan’s. Unfortunately, I do not have enough background on Tamil movies to expand on that.
Cut to 2010-11. We have two movies coming back to back. Salman Khan’s Dabangg and Ajay Devgan’s Singham. There are many similarities between these two movies and some crucial differences as well. Why these two movies? No other reason than I saw them one after the other.
Even though these movies are similar, they are not connected. Singham is a remake of Tamil movie Singam. Director Rohit Shetty has more than remade the Hindi version. One reason I did not like the Tamil version Singam was that I find it hard to get used to fast motion sequences and extreme jerky cuts. In Singham, Rohit Shetty does the opposite. He slows down the action. Most of Ajay Devgan’s sequences are shot in slow motion.
Singham is where the superhero label really fits. First of all, the name Singham means Narsimha (half lion, half man) which is one of the reincarnations of Lord Vishnu. The entry of Ajay Devgan as Bajirao Singham fully justifies his God status. He is shown emerging from the water and all around him devotees are praying in his direction. This is accompanied by Sanskrit chants that praise Narsimha. (I would love to know the source of these Sanskrit verses!)
In contrast, Salman Khan playing Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg is a mixture of many contemporary heroes and superheroes. There is a bit of Neo from Matrix, some Terminator, a bit of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon flying sequence and a trademark goggle action which is a nod to Superstar Rajini.
Both the characters of Bajirao Singham and Chulbul Pandey have been designed with specific Indian sub-cultures in mind. Singham taps the Marathi crowd in Maharashtra while Chulbul Pandey woos the U.P.-Bihar belt. If you listen carefully, you will find that the rhythm used by Ajay-Atul in the Singham title song is quintessentially Maharashtrian.
In both these movies, extraordinary effort has been put in to make the dialogues crispy and authentic. Hence the sometimes crass humour in Dabangg. For instance, Chulbul Pandey asks a character who has polio, “Do boond nahi piye?” (You did not drink the two drops?) referring to the polio vaccination program. He replies, “Baap ko daaru pine se phursat nahi mili.” (My father was too busy getting drunk.) I refuse to believe that this scathing humour is of any less value just because the film stars Salman Khan. The productions values are high for both these movies.
It is interesting to see how the concept of morality has changed from the times of Bachchan. It is inconceivable to imagine him in his prime accepting bribe on screen, something that Chulbul Pandey does without thinking twice. In both Singham and Dabangg, we never see the justice system in action. The superheroes perform extra-judicial killings in the end and the viewers are satisfied with the outcome.
Most of the reviews of these two movies comment on the unrealistic fighting scenes. This is because they are viewing the movies through a realistic lens. If we switch the lens and assume that these are superhero movies, then we don’t have to worry about questions like why they defy gravity. There is no need then to use adjectives like make-believe or exaggerated.
This is the season of film festivals in India. I always feel that film festivals and Kindle Unlimited have the same philosophy – truckload of content for a limited amount of time. Film festivals almost always show the critically acclaimed movies from every country. Movies that may or may not be popular with the masses. Now I have nothing against any kind of cinema. I like Bergman as much as any fan of his. But I cannot help wondering – how far these movies represent the zeitgeist of a particular country?
The distinction of high-brow and low-brow art is – pardon the pun – artificial. There is good art and there is bad art, irrespective of the genre. A badly made art movie cannot be better than a commercial movie with high production values just because it’s genre is supposed to be high-brow. If a work of art gives you a memorable experience, then that is good art.
So, I propose an anti-film festival, if you will. Forget the critically acclaimed movies, show me the movies that the people love and flock to theaters to watch. What kind of humour do they like – slapstick, dark humour or droll satire of the British? Which action movies do they like – aliens and spaceships or zombie apocalypse?
A well made commercial movie can provide as much insight into a culture as a critically acclaimed one.
